


Maybe Tomorrow

by Aaron_The_8th_Demon



Series: Logan's Run [2]
Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Autism, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family Bonding, Family Drama, Family Shenanigans, Father-Son Relationship, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Hate Crimes, Heavy Angst, Memories, Mutant Hate, Original Character Death(s), Parent-Child Relationship, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Esteem Issues, Some Humor, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, TV News, Teen Angst, Teenage Drama, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-18 12:40:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10617117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaron_The_8th_Demon/pseuds/Aaron_The_8th_Demon
Summary: Set nine years after the epilogue of Trapped (yes you should read that one first to avoid a lot of confusion), we get a look at Logan and Jean's family unit moving through the obstacle course known as life. Being mutant parents of four mutant children is hard enough, but when one of them is autistic even the smallest things can be a struggle.Most people who write X-Men fic don't do the Jean/Logan pairing anyway, and the ones that do are pretty much centered just around them getting with each other in the first place and not their lives afterwards. Hopefully this will bring a little balance. Post X-2, not compliant with X-3 or later movies (though there are a few references to events from X-3 and from Origins: Wolverine. I know I'm the only one who likes that movie, but... shut up.)





	1. School Supplies

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, PLEASE DON'T SKEWER ME. I had the idea for this little piece of daily life drama and Logan's mental health problems are too fun to not play with. He's a bit less savage here, but that makes sense in the context that since he's been with Jean for almost 13 years she's calmed him down a lot for the sake of their kids.
> 
> I'm paranoid and moderate my comments, but as long as you're not spamming me or being needlessly mean, feedback is great. It helps me grow as a writer and any comments/kudos make me feel really good, so if you enjoy the story, feel free :)

_Not that he’d ever been very good at sleeping to begin with, but he almost never did at all anymore. Logan would just lie there, his body tangled in the bedding, with the pillow flattened under his head and his hazel eyes staring at the window without actually looking through it. His hair was growing out, he needed a shave, but he hadn’t even gotten up to eat in over a week. He could already feel his muscle mass vanishing, but he didn’t care._

_Nothing could make him care._

_Occasionally during the day, while Jean was with the kids and he was by himself, Logan would doze off and on, but it was never for more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time. She was threatening to put an IV in his arm._

_But he still didn’t care._

_Sixteen days ago, after he’d simply gotten too exhausted to stay angry, Logan had thrown on his sweatpants and collapsed onto the bed. He’d slept for the next three, but after that had remained awake without even putting on clean clothes. His whole body was numb, and his mind was too scrambled to notice the world around him._

_Jean would stubbornly try to reach him: “Baby, are you going to get up today?” Her voice was heavy with the sadness she couldn’t hide from him, but she still tried. He didn’t notice._

_Logan’s littlest son Chuckie, who was only four and didn’t understand what was happening, would crawl up to him: “Daddy, I brought you a snack.” A chocolate chip granola bar was gripped in his small fist and eventually abandoned on the mattress, until Jean had removed the undisturbed pile of processed oats that barely counted as real food._

_One of his daughters would grab his hand in the middle of the night: “Dad, I had a nightmare.” She would climb up and snuggle against his chest, sobbing into his grubby wife-beater until she fell asleep. Logan didn’t register her presence, but if he had, he probably would’ve thought that Laura was the only one who felt as bad as he did._

_Only once or twice was Jean able to break Logan out of his stupor: “Baby, please say something. You’re scaring us.” A tear rolling off her cheek hit his temple and startled a thought out of him, which was voiced in a barely-audible mumble._

_“Maybe tomorrow.”_

_And then Logan was gone again._

 

“Hey, boys,” Storm greeted them.

Logan answered with a noncommittal grunt from under the pickup truck, noting multiple sets of feet entering the garage. He tossed a wrench out and it skidded across the concrete floor, only vaguely heading in the direction of TJ, his oldest son. “Gimme the next biggest one.”

The skinny twelve-year-old didn’t say a word as he passed over the tool.

“How come you’re down there?” Storm asked.

“Truck’s broke,” Logan answered flatly, too concentrated on the task at hand to offer more words.

“We’re going to the mall,” Jean spoke up. Logan heard her open the door to the Jeep.

“How come you don’t come with us, Dad?” Jenny questioned as she and her twin sister both peered down at him.

“Truck’s broke,” he repeated, growling as he rubbed loose dirt and rust flakes out of his eyes for the hundredth time. “Go have fun with your mom and Aunt Ro, have lunch with you when you get back.” Logan scooted partly out from under the truck for a moment to look at the four females climbing into the old vehicle. “Hey, Jeannie, don’t forget to leave the E-brake off, it’s been sticking.”

“I thought that’s what you’re fixing on the truck,” his wife frowned.

“Nah, stripping it for parts. Thing’s all beat to shit, make more money turning it in for scrap than trading it as-is. More rust than engine left, but Slim wants the parts for his mechanics class.”

“Alright, then. We can look for a new one next weekend.”

“Yeah, hey TJ, you wanna come with us for that?”

Predictably, the boy said nothing, and just shrugged limply without looking. It was rare to get more than a word out of him every few days, and trying to hold even a basic conversation was next to impossible. Logan had mostly come to grips with his son’s autism long before now, but in moments like this he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pain. TJ was a classic case of a brilliant mind trapped in a body that didn’t work, and because his consciousness was vastly different from most people’s it took a painstaking and concentrated effort for even the professor to communicate with him psychically.

It was subject to debate, but sometimes Logan couldn’t help but feel that even if he wasn’t autistic TJ would probably still be very quiet and brooding. Aside from a few minor things, the kid was almost an exact copy of him, right down to clothing choice. TJ had recently mutated and revealed six razor-sharp bone claws in his hands, though the healing factor seemed to be absent. It wasn’t really clear if his heightened sensory perception came from Logan either, or were simply another attribute of his disorder. Unfortunately, TJ had also gotten Jean’s telekinetic abilities, so if he got set off by something Logan had to pin him until he calmed down or could be tranquilized.

Shoving the salvaged parts and random tools away to the side, Logan crawled out from under the truck and wiped his greasy fingers on a filthy rag without much effect. He didn’t really mind having his son around, even if they didn’t talk. TJ had been close with him from the beginning, so he made a huge effort to spend as much time with his son as possible.

“C’mon, kid. Lemme clean off a little and then I’ll let you go in the Danger Room until they get back, okay?”

“Level five,” TJ whispered, falling into step behind him as they left the garage.

Logan snorted. “Alright, but if it get’s too hard, you gotta tell me, okay? Don’t want you getting too beat up, or Mom’ll skin me.”

 

The book is open next to the plate, on the left side. The fork, the notebook and the pen are on the right side, so that he can eat and write. On the plate are sausages, lined up, but not touching the pool of spicy mustard. Good. He can eat the sausages and do his nuclear decay calculations without incident.

They’re talking and he’s writing while he chews. He can hear them all chewing, too, but pausing to talk. He’s excellent at extrapolating the meaning behind written language, but spoken Words are usually lost on him. He doesn’t always know when they’re directed at him, either. He doesn’t think they are right now. Besides, the scraping of metal utensils against ceramic dishes is much more irritating, and he can mostly only hear that. Grandpa Charles told him to listen to the Words, though. Maybe he can put away the scraping.

We got new clothes for school. Laura’s clothes are different from mine, though, so we won’t mix them up.

Huh. Good idea.

Our backpacks and shoes are different colors too, Jenny’s are pink and mine are purple. Mom and Aunt Ro even found purple pencils for me.

That’s nice.

Try to at least pretend you’re interested, Logan.

What, Jeannie? I’m talking to them, ain’t I?

Ugh. You know what I mean. Just imagine that their school supplies are a motorcycle engine.

Clothes don’t smell like gasoline.

You’re not funny, Dad.

Hey, I really am making an effort. Just don’t give a shit about school supplies.

Didn’t you go to school, Dad?

Nope. Don’t remember, but I don’t think so.

Will I go to school, Daddy?

Yeah, couple years to go though, cub. You gotta be six to go to school.

Actually, Chuckie starts kindergarten next year after he turns five.

No shit.

Language, Logan.

What? They already heard it all before when that toolbox fell on my head last month.

I really am going to start that swear jar for you if you keep it up. You’ll run out of beer money in about five hours.

Yeah, I ain’t too worried ’bout that. Got a couple twelve-packs of Molson yesterday while you were on that call with the dickheads in Atlanta.

Okay. I’m getting a swear jar.

You got in trouble, Dad.

Yeah, you keep laughing ’bout that and I’ll tickle you til you cry, Laura.

He closes his physics textbook after the last bite of sausage and licks the remaining mustard from the plate before leaving the kitchen with it under his arm. In his room are his medications. Two pills for his epilepsy. One for his anxiety. One for his immune system. Two puffs of his inhaler for his asthma. And now he sits at his desk and opens the physics textbook again. Hank says it’s college-level, but those Words are almost as abstract for him at his disease. _Autism._ Dad says that Word _autism_ the same way he says the swears mom tells him not to use, but he’s not sure why. All he knows is that it’s the Word people call him. Sometimes he forgets that his name is Thomas John Grey-Logan, and not _autism._

He hears Chuckie run into his room, yelling Words. He covers his ears because it hurts.

Hey, can you play with me? I wanna play, but Laura and Jenny won’t play with me.

He can’t find his own Words. Chuckie wants to play, but he doesn’t know how. The way Chuckie plays is different from how he does. He spreads out a large cardboard over the floor for a stable surface and then sets up the plastic soldiers with sandbags and tanks into a combat scene from the movies he’s watched, then just leaves them until he decides to make a new one. But Chuckie is always throwing his toys around, yelling Words that don’t make sense and don’t seem to be pointed in the direction of anyone but himself. He doesn’t understand why Chuckie does that. Nobody else does that.

Chuckie is still yelling Words that hurt his ears. So he takes out the Claws. Dad’s Claws come out sometimes and people always leave him alone after. So he takes out his Claws and points them at Chuckie. It makes Chuckie leave, so now he can sit back down with his physics. He thinks nothing is better than physics.

 

“Son of a bitch,” Logan muttered as he watched the news report.

“Yup,” Scott growled in agreement.

As always, it was some hate group with their poorly-spelled protest signs screaming in ignorance at the crime scene tape. Earlier today some shithead teenager had shot up his high school for letting mutants attend, and already the idiots were raging around the site, screaming obscenities and yelling about how the “muties deserved it” and all the usual things.

To his dismay, Logan glanced over his shoulder and saw TJ lurking silently in the doorway, eyes fixed to the large TV screen. He wasn’t sure how much his son understood about these issues, but hopefully it would just go over the kid’s head without making an impact.

“Hey bud,” Scott greeted, also noticing Logan’s son. “Do you need something?”

TJ was quiet and still, not even blinking and still watching the news channel. Logan grimaced and got up from the couch.

“Just gimme a shout if we’re needed for this one,” he grunted, glancing at Scott. (Neither of them would ever admit it, even now, but they’d been friends for years at this point.) “Let’s go squirrel hunting, kid. C’mon.”

TJ followed him like always, still maintaining silence. Interacting with his oldest child was about the only time Logan ever wished he was a telepath. He’d give anything to communicate with his son, so that he could teach and explain and influence. As it stood, he could almost never tell if anything he said or did had an effect on the boy. TJ’s lack of expressions and body language didn’t help at all, either. Even mute people could communicate through actions, but the kid was usually unable to manage even that. Witnessing this each day for more than twelve and a half years, Logan spent every second of that time swallowing the pain he felt for his son and struggling to accept that they could never really connect. Their minds simply didn’t exist on the same plane.

Logan wasn’t much of a conversationalist by nature, but with TJ he tried to remember to talk more. Maybe it would help eventually. “So how’s school, kid? Hank said you’re already on college courses. I bet in a couple years the furball’s gonna run outta stuff to teach you, huh?”

Silence.

“Y’know maybe you could be a doctor like your mom. Heh, you’re a lot smarter’n me, anyway. Can do a lot a good things with a brain like yours. Maybe help her get the point across to people that mutants got a right to exist. Yeah, bet you’d be a good doctor. Just don’t be some army scientist, okay? You do that, and I’ll hafta punish you. Those guys are assholes.”

Silence.

“You wanna eat the squirrels after, or just kill them? Don’t mind either way.”

Silence.

“What’re you thinking about back there, kid?” Logan mumbled, but this time the question was more directed at himself in thoughtfulness. That made it all the more surprising that _this_ was the question TJ decided to answer.

“You’re smart, Dad.”

Logan was so shocked by this that he stopped dead in his tracks. Three words at a time was one of the longest sentences TJ could usually manage, and he didn’t think the boy had _ever_ used speech to acknowledge something about another person before. The leaves crunched under his boots as he turned around.

“Come again, kid?”

Silence.

TJ was staring at the ground and playing with a button on his flannel, making Logan doubt he’d said anything at all.


	2. Sprite

_They’re not impressed with him._

_That’s not their fault, though. Logan knows that if his kid ever had a boyfriend like him, he probably wouldn’t be too thrilled, either. Especially since he’d shaken himself dry like an animal out of reflex before noticing Jean’s parents staring at him. In his defense, he hadn’t zipped his jacket and it was pouring out so his shirts were soaked, but Logan still felt like an idiot as their eyes bored into him and Jean pressed her face into her palms with embarrassment._

Logan, I know you’re still almost completely feral, but please don’t do things like that, _she thought to him._

Sorry, Jeannie.

Don’t be sorry, don’t do it again, _his mate thought back at him. Then she forced a smile. “Mom, Dad, this is TJ,” Jean introduced, gently passing the six-month-old over to her mother. Thankfully their expressions instantly melted and attention was drawn away from Logan. “We would’ve brought him to meet you sooner, but things have been really hectic before now and I had to wait until school got out.”_

_“Hello, angel,” Elaine cooed, smiling at the grunting bundle. “My, you’re just as precious as your mamma when she was as small as you.”_

_“He don’t speak English yet,” Logan blurted out, then realized he shouldn’t have. He swallowed when they stared at him again. “Uh… I mean… y’know what, I’ll wait in the car-”_

_“_ No, _” Jean snapped, grabbing the sleeve of his jacket and yanking him back over._

 _Logan squeezed his eyes shut for a second and let out a sigh, but then cut it short into a huff. “Look, okay, I know I ain’t what you thought I should be, and I’m kinda… well…_ rough _sometimes. You don’t gotta like me, won’t blame you if you don’t, either. But I really love Jeannie, I really love our son, and I’m tryna get better at this stuff. Sorry for splashing you.” He glanced at his girlfriend. “Can I just wait in the car now?”_

 _Jean rolled her eyes at him. “Go sit on the couch.”_ And no smoking, _she added silently._

_He struggled not to groan at that, but obediently clomped into her parents’ living room and sat down heavily. Thankfully, none of them followed him, but his keen ears still picked up on John and Elaine griping about him._

_“He’s… um… very interesting.”_

_While Jean’s mother was still trying to be polite, her father was much more blunt: “Was this really the best you could do? What happened to Scott? He was such a great kid.”_

_“John,” Elaine hissed in rebuke. “How did you meet him again, dear? You said he’s a bit of a ruffian, but I wasn’t imagining… well, I wasn’t imagining-”_

_“Mom, it’s fine,” Jean insisted, though Logan could feel her frustration even without being psychic. “Two of my friends rescued him from an attack up north. They brought him to the school and I helped treat him.”_

_“Too bad you can’t inject him with some manners,” John muttered._

_“Logan doesn’t mean to be the way he is, Dad. He’s been working very hard since we got together, especially when we found out we were having TJ. He’s been in the military.”_

_“Ah, alright,” her father acknowledged, sounding slightly more comfortable with the idea of them now. “That must be why he’s so gruff. Where did he serve?”_

_“It’s a touchy subject,” Jean answered in a low voice. “Logan has severe post-traumatic stress disorder. He doesn’t like to talk about it.”_

_“Is he dangerous?” Elaine spoke up, her voice betraying concern and distrust._

_“No, Mom. He would_ never _let anything happen to me or TJ. I know he seems rough around the edges and kind of cranky, but trust me, he really is a good man underneath.”_

_A sigh. “Alright, dear. We’ll trust you.”_

_Logan rolled his eyes, but straightened up on the couch and tried to look as nonthreatening as possible when they finally came into the living room. Elaine was still holding his son and Jean sat beside him, finding his hand. In spite of his earlier discomfort, it managed to draw a small smile out of him, and he even relaxed slightly._

_“So where are you from, Logan?” Jean’s mother asked._

_“Uh… Alberta, I think,” he struggled, frowning and scraping his brain for memories that wouldn’t find him. “Maybe. Don’t remember anymore. That’s where Scott and Ororo picked me up, anyway.”_

_“What did you do for work before you came to this country?”_

_He was about to answer either “drifter” or “cage fighter,” but a stern glance from Jean told him that wasn’t appropriate._

_“Um, a few different things. I moved around a lot, really.”_

_“What did you need medical care for?” John wondered._

_“Huh?”_

_“Jean said she had to help treat you.”_

_“Oh, yeah. Tree fell into the road and I went flying through the windshield of my truck.”_

LOGAN, _Jean thought at him._

Well, help me out here, Jeannie! You don’t want them asking about the bad shit that’s happened to me, make them change the subject. All I got’s the unpleasant shit to talk about, _he pointed out._

_“So, a few months ago Charles offered Logan a teaching position,” Jean interjected, forcing another smile. “He oversees the physical fitness of the students and even teaches them martial arts.”_

_“I see,” Elaine nodded, then became distracted when TJ grabbed her finger. “Well, you’ve certainly created a very handsome grandson for us.”_

_“Thanks,” Logan answered slowly, not really sure how he should reply to that comment. It wasn’t like he’d had any control over which genes his kid had gotten._

_“Are you planning on having another one?” John asked, startling him._

_“Oh, fuck no,” he responded before he could think about it. “Uh, I mean… not for a while, anyway.”_

_“You know, we’re not sure yet,” Jean butted in. Logan didn’t think this encounter could possibly get more painfully awkward, though, so at least that was something. “Studies have shown that it actually takes up to two years for a woman to finish recovering from pregnancy and storing the nutrients to conceive another child, so we’re going to wait a little if we decide to get pregnant again.”_

_“Well, we’ll try to make it up for a visit on his birthday. If we can’t, we’ll certainly send him something… what about your family, Logan? Have they met TJ yet?”_

_“They’re dead,” Logan answered bluntly. He didn’t see the point in pussyfooting around anymore; Jean’s parents would probably never be comfortable around him no matter what he did or said. “Far as I know, he’s the only blood I got, now.”_

_“I’m sorry for your loss,” Elaine frowned, seeming like she wished he was at least a thousand feet further away from her than he currently was._

_Logan just grunted, knowing that any words would only exacerbate things. He directed his thoughts at his girlfriend._

Jeannie, I love you, and I know you love your parents, but for fuck’s sake don’t make me do this again. I ain’t driving outta state four hours one way with a screaming kid again just so they can stare at me.

I’m sorry, Logan. I just wanted TJ to meet them, _she answered, much more gently than he expected._

_Letting out a long but silent breath through his nose, Logan gave her hand a squeeze. If he could just keep his mouth shut, it wouldn’t get any more nauseating for them, and eventually it would be over._

 

“Bring it over-hey, Jenny, stop putting your fingers into the bowl!”

“But it’s so yummy!”

“Get your fingers out of that batter. Logan, bring the bowl over here…”

“Son of a bitch!”

The shattering noise came loud from this kitchen at the same moment the words were shouted. As Jean peered in through the doorway, she couldn’t stop the grin of amusement at the sight her best friend trying to clean up the mess while her husband and daughters were both scrambling around. Logan was almost as sticky as Laura and Jenny were, wiping his hands onto his wife-beater and sweatpants before looking up and spotting her. His shoulders slumped.

“Uh… I can explain,” he started, then sighed. “God dammit, you two, if you weren’t trying to eat outta the bowl I wouldn’a dropped it,” he snapped. “Shit, Jeannie. Ro and the girls were tryna help me make a cake for your birthday ’cause you’ll be at that medical thing next week and… didn’t go too well.”

Jean couldn’t help but laugh, crossing the room and pulling him into a kiss despite his batter-smeared shirt. “It’s okay, baby. It’s the thought that counts anyway.” He smirked and she kissed him again. “I’m sure it was going to be a delicious cake.”

Logan grunted. “Yeah, well, if two certain _hellions_ over there hadn’t been tryna eat it for you before it got _cooked_ …”

The twins both giggled, still licking sugar from their fingers in defiance of their father’s words.

“It was going to be a pink cake, Mom,” Laura grinned.

“I picked it out,” Jenny added.

“I’m sorry about the mess,” Ororo apologized, also smiling. “They’ll help me clean up and I’ll pick one up for you later so you can celebrate with the kids.”

“Thanks, that’d be great,” Jean nodded at her best friend. “What about the boys, are they scheming something, too?”

“Chuckie is a little, I helped him wrap your present,” Logan smirked. She knew he meant that he’d wrapped it while the four-year-old played loudly nearby, probably binding his own fingers with tape in the process, but she didn’t mind. “Told TJ it’s your birthday, but I don’t know if he’s figured that out, yet.”

Discomfort crossed his expression and she put her hand on the side of his face. “Hey. Remember last year, when he actually blew out his own candles? He’s working on it. The therapy is helping.”

“I know.” Logan sighed, leaning into her palm. “Don’t even remember being a kid myself, but I want it to be better for him. So far I’m doing a pretty bang-up job…”

A few years ago Jean would have winced at her husband’s sarcasm, but now she just pulled him into a hug.

“You’re a _great_ father,” she assured him, rubbing his back. “Remember when we met and you choked me? If anyone told me back then that you’d willingly be in the kitchen at seven in the morning trying to make a _cake_ with two eight-year-old girls, I’d have had them committed.”

From there, the day went predictably. Jean taught biology in the morning and had lunch with Logan and TJ before the pair left for autism therapy, and spent the afternoon grading quizzes and planning tomorrow’s lessons. Unfortunately for her, the class she had with the youngest (and therefore most immature) students would be covering the basics of human reproduction. She had a great tool for that, though; Chuckie would sit in class with her for it as an example, and live specimens were always more interesting for the kids than whatever was printed in their textbooks.

Jean’s brain tingled sometime mid-afternoon, telling her that Logan and TJ had come back from Cambridge. Over time a mental link had grown between her mind and her husband’s, to the point where they could always hear each other’s thoughts and emotions to a distance of almost a mile. Normally it wasn’t a big deal, but she could already feel that he was more agitated than usual and wasn’t the least bit surprised when he entered the infirmary.

“Dr. Keough said TJ’s unhappy,” Logan grumbled, dropping heavily into her desk chair and making it groan under his weight. “The fuck are we paying that guy for? That’s all he can tell me, ‘TJ is unhappy?’ Thanks, dipshit, could’a figured that one out on my own. I ain’t _that_ thick.”

“It’s not Dr. Keough’s fault,” Jean pointed out, not looking up from where she was writing on top of the file cabinet. She only turned his way once the paper had been slid into the drawer. “Psychiatrists aren’t gods, and TJ’s almost a teenager. All teenagers are unhappy and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it.”

Logan smirked at that; Jean almost never swore. Then he scowled again after a moment. “Know I don’t got control over this, but it’s still my fault he is that way. Pretty sure it’s my shitty DNA that fucked him up. I brought this on him and he don’t deserve it.” He shook his head. “Shouldn’t there be some medicine for it by now?”

“Not directly,” Jean answered. “In the average human brain, the cells in the deeper layers are lined up in a specific order. In a child with autism, the cells are in clusters. The deeper layers of the brain form during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy… you don’t medicate that. You can’t see autism, but it still manifests from a physical trait.”

“Well, fuck…”

“I know, Logan.”

“Just want him to be happy.”

“I know,” she repeated. She crossed the room and pulled him into a hug. “His mind is hard to get a fix on, even for Charles, but there’s one thing we know for sure. He knows you’re doing your best, and he loves you for it. Okay?”

Logan’s scruff tickled her neck when he nodded. “Yeah. Just forget sometimes, that’s all. Don’t feel like I’m trying hard enough.”

 

Dad lets him sit next to the wall in the booth, where he feels safe, and then sits next to him. Laura sits next to Dad, and Mom sits on the other side with Chuckie and Jenny. Usually they don’t take him to places like this, places outside the school. Most of the time it’s too bright and too noisy and he doesn’t like it, which makes the Claws come out whether he means it or not. But today is special. Today is Mom’s birthday. It means they will eat different food than usual and give her shiny boxes with things inside of them.

Dad told him earlier that he should try and use Words. So he sits and thinks, trying to find them. Usually he only has Words on paper because of the _autism,_ but sometimes his mouth can use them. Maybe if he listens to them use Words, he can think of some, too.

I want ice cream, Daddy.

You gotta eat real food first, cub. Ain’t gonna change that rule just ’cause we’re not at home. You want macaroni?

Yeah. And then ice cream.

 **Ice cream,** he tells them, mimicking his little brother. Ice cream is only for birthdays, because Mom wants them to eat real food. He’s not sure what real food is, only that it’s not ice cream. But at least he found some Words.

Yeah, you can have ice cream too, kid.

A Stranger comes over to the table. He doesn’t look, but he can smell that it’s a young female.

Hi, folks. I’ll be your server this evening. Can I start you off with something to drink?

Strawberry milk.

They don’t got strawberry milk here, Chuckie. They got chocolate milk or regular milk.

Regular milk.

Don’t give him a straw. Uh. TJ will have Sprite.

Is Sierra Mist okay?

Yeah, fine. I’ll take whatever your darkest beer is. Girls?

I want orange soda.

I want grape soda.

Iced tea, unsweetened.

It bothers him that they don’t have Sprite. He doesn’t think Sierra Mist tastes as good, and the Claws start itching. They want to come out. But Dr. Keough said not to let them. He’s not supposed to let the Claws out if he’s not at home.

**Sprite.**

They don’t got Sprite, kid. Sorry. Hey. It’ll be fine.

Dad’s big hand squeezes his shoulder. But the Sierra Mist still bothers him, and the Claws still want to come out. Dr. Keough told him he needs to find Words if something is bothering him. He struggles. He tries to find the Words, but they don’t come to him. He can only find one Word for how it bothers him that they don’t have Sprite.

**Claws.**

Okay, that’s what I thought. C’mon, kid.

Dad grabs his arm and pulls him back outside. That bothers him, too. He doesn’t like being grabbed because it presses the shirt against his skin, and he hates it. It hurts. It’s not like how it hurts if he gets a bruise or a cut. This is a different hurt, like his arm is screaming, and that makes him feel like screaming. So he does. He forgets about the Claws, so they come out too like they want to scream with him.

Dad makes him lie down on the sidewalk. His arms and legs are pinned, and then the weight because Dad has metal on his bones. He likes the heaviness on top of him, though, because it helps him feel like he won’t fly away or fall off the earth. He has blankets with weights in them at home to help him feel good. It reminds him why he’s not supposed to scream, and why the Claws aren’t supposed to come out. And once his skin stops screaming, he stops screaming, too. It makes the Claws go away.

You wanna go home, kid?

Yes, he wants to go home. At home they have Sprite and not Sierra Mist. His physics textbook is on his desk. If his legs want to move too much he can go in the Danger Room, as long as Dad or Scott is watching. He gets in the car when Dad lets him up, and they leave.

So your doc said something’s bugging you, you wanna tell me about it?

He reaches, and for once, the Words come to him. **Don’t know.**

You don’t know or you don’t wanna talk?

**Don’t know.**

Okay, then. If you change your mind, you can tell me later. It’s okay, kid. Sometimes shit gets to me and I don’t know why, either.

Dad turns on the radio, but he doesn’t like what’s on it. He starts scanning through channels but just loops back to the song he doesn’t like. He turns the radio back off and touches the buttons on his shirt. Sometimes they fall off, and it bothers him. He wants to make sure they’re all there. He doesn’t like wearing shirts without buttons. Mom puts the buttons back on if he finds where they fell off, but he doesn’t always know where they went. But this shirt has all the buttons. He likes that.


	3. The Abstract

_Logan’s hands were clasped together and he leaned his elbows on his knees pensively. Jean was sitting in the waiting area with him, madly hammering the keys of her laptop as she finished some report or other for a medical conference she had coming up. He wished he had such a convenient distraction, but if he’d been sent out with Summers for recruiting this morning he knew he’d be just as worried and useless, only he'd be in some other place._

_Logan had been shoving today into the back of his mind for almost four months. He’d lied to himself, pretended it wasn’t coming, and stubbornly refused to discuss it with Jean (which she finally got angry with him for and informed him that she didn’t appreciate it). He had only looked at her then, not bothering to defend his forced silence, and that was when she’d realized he was in extreme denial._

_What doctor’s appointment? TJ doesn’t need a doctor. His son was flawless in every way._

_Logan couldn’t look the other way anymore, though. On the other side of an unremarkable door down the hall, some medical jackass was deliberately looking for something wrong with the two-year-old. Shit, he couldn’t even make himself believe it. TJ had never seemed to notice the world, had only just started walking without help, and showed no signs of talking at all. He would sit and flap his arms constantly, but wouldn’t play and cried if they set him in the grass outdoors._

_But what had gone wrong? Nothing could have broken his child. Logan had been there the whole time, sitting behind Jean and holding her on the infirmary bed while Hank delivered their infant son. TJ hadn’t even been named yet, but when Logan held the newborn for the first time it had made his eyes sting with tears at the joy and love that suddenly overwhelmed him. There had been nothing wrong, then. Hank had said so himself, that TJ had been born almost perfectly on time with virtually no complications. Even Jean’s labor had been surprisingly easier than most._

Fuck, _Logan thought, unfolding his hands to drum his fingers against the arm of the chair._ Fuck. Everything was going great and I held him, must’a done something wrong, oh Christ, I broke my own kid… what did I do? I held him exactly the way Jeannie told me…

_The slightly overweight psychiatrist finally ambled down the hall and led them into his office. Logan just couldn’t sit anymore - he paced nervously by the window, hands balled into fists the same way he did when he thought he was about to be ambushed. Off to the side, TJ was sitting on the floor with an array of small blocks. Most of them were colored, though some weren’t, and the toddler was lining them up with disturbing precision. All the wooden ones had the grain facing the same way. Then a line of red, then orange, and so on in exact chromatic order. He was finishing the purple ones now. Logan hadn’t encountered many small children, at least as far as he knew, but there was no way around the fact that no two-year-old should be capable of this action._

_“Well Ms. Grey, Mr. Logan,” the doctor sighed as he settled behind a wide desk, “I wish I could give you better news, but I’m afraid your intuition was right on the money. Your son is displaying a textbook case of an autism-spectrum disorder. He’s right on the line, too, not dysfunctional enough to be on the severe side, but not functional enough to be called moderate. I have a colleague in Cambridge who’s a specialist, so I can refer you and Thomas can start behavioral therapy right away.”_

_“Fuck that,” Logan growled, not stopping as he walked laps back and forth along the wall. “Ain’t there some shot you can give him?”_

_“Well…” The psychiatrist sighed quietly. “It’s not that simple. Please, Mr. Logan-may I call you James?-I think you shout sit.”_

_“I ain’t gonna sit and no you may fucking not call me James,” he spat, feeling his skin itch over his claws. “Just do fucking something, fix whatever your disorder is, make him so that he can just be normal! Deserves to be normal.”_

_There was a long pause._

_“Sir, I understand that you and your partner work at a boarding school for young mutants, and that you’re mutants as well.”_

_“Yeah, so fucking what? That ain’t got nothing to do with it, bub.”_

_“You’re behaving quite similarly to other parents when they find out their child has inherited the mutant ‘x’ gene. An autistic disorder is extremely similar. There are no procedures to reverse it any more than there are ways to negate mutation.”_

_“You’re funny,” Logan ground out, his jaw clenched almost as tightly as his fists. “This better be a fucking joke.”_

_“Logan.” Jean’s voice was quiet, but forceful. “Please.”_

_“No,” he snapped, not wanting to accept this as truth. “No. This ain’t okay, you’re supposed to be a fucking doctor, I know you got some way to fix my kid so FUCKING FIX HIM!”_

_As he roared he turned without meaning to and put both fists through the window with a loud crash. His claws hadn’t extended, but splintered glass was driven into the skin of his hands until his healing factor kicked in and they started to get pushed out. The red fury receded abnormally quickly, but only because TJ was bawling with fear. Logan’s instincts kicked in and he scooped up his son._

_“I’m sorry for my boyfriend’s… um… outburst, Dr. Vought.”_

_“Does he ever threaten you or your child?”_

_“No, he’s never even thought about it. He has severe PTSD from the military, and when I met him I saw evidence of past head trauma that wasn’t properly treated. Logan would never hurt me or TJ.”_

_“I see… Ms. Grey, I can understand your partner’s frustration, and I’ll tell my practice not to take legal action. But when Thomas is in therapy, and especially if he needs to come here again, I_ strongly _suggest that Mr. Logan isn’t the one to accompany him. It’s unlikely we’ll be able to forgive any further property damage.”_

_Logan ignored them, cradling a still-wailing TJ against his body and whispering soothing words. He never would’ve cared before, but now he felt bad about smashing the window because he’d made his son cry. Besides, it meant he didn’t have to face the situation yet. He just had to concentrate on calming his son like there was nothing else in the world._

 

He takes his medicine after lunch like always, even though he doesn’t like it. The pills taste bad and the inhaler dries out his mouth. Why does he have to use them? He doesn’t want to swallow things whole and breathe gas out of a plastic tube. But he knows that if he doesn’t, Dad will make him anyway. Then Mom will give him Words about his body that are attached to abstract concepts. That’s why he loves physics. The logic and designs of the universe give the most defined information to him, explanations behind how the world works that never change. Only physics can lead him out of the abstract.

Algebra and geometry are a significant force within the realms of physics, but he doesn’t find them quite as appealing. He prefers the complicated rules and foundation of evidence that tell him the reason something behaves a certain way. He likes to know the why and how, not just the answer, because without the explanation the result is rendered almost meaningless.

He’s read almost every book in the mansion, and even though the abstract lives in the pages of books and causes his mind to stumble, he’s also noted a singular theme within the chaos of undefined and poorly explained concepts - that for every action, to quote the line directly, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This particular set of Words in their particular order intrigues him to no end. It is less than twenty Words long, but all by itself can destroy the abstract by the simple truth that action/reaction is the basis of all logic, all knowledge, and all science. Especially physics. For him, physics confine the world to equations and laws, but because of those equations and laws there’s no limit to the potential of their application. All questions that have ever been thought of will eventually be answered by physics.

The written Word, ranging from historical literature to the most absurd works of fiction, is where the abstract is born. He has respect for Words, those fragile things that he can never find when he needs them, but they still bother him. It only makes him love physics more, because the abstract concept flees from science. Even the Word for those Words, abstract, is somewhat abstract for him. He thinks it means something insubstantial or elusive, but none of the dictionaries could agree, so that still only counts as a guess.

He lets his feet just move him while his mind processes itself, and when the world comes back to him he sees gray. In October everything lights itself on fire, and November is just a dead and gray time. December will be here soon to wash it clean until the green comes back, but for now he doesn’t like how it looks. The woods around the school are dead and he wants them to live again. It won’t be for a while.

The gray bothers his eyes, but it’s still interesting. Sometimes he doesn’t understand things, especially the ones who walk and live around him, but the one thing he knows for sure is that Scott and Kurt and Hank and Warren and Kitty and Piotr and Bobby and Grandpa Charles and Aunt Ro and Mom and Dad and Laura and Jenny and Chuckie are not held with the abstract Words that make him need medicine every day. The forest doesn’t need medicine, either. Why does he have to take medicine, then? Why is he bound to shapeless illusions that only exist because of Words?

He thinks he’s really starting to hate Words, now. They’re nothing but trouble. He can’t even put Words together for himself to understand what he’s feeling right now. Another abstract Word, injustice, comes to his brain, but somehow that’s not the right one. Injustice is most commonly used in the context of law, but he doesn’t know what law could make him need medicine.

Physics are laws, the only real ones, anyway. Physics will give him the law. Physics can answer everything, if he gives them enough time.

 

“Have fun recruiting,” Jean smiled.

Logan kissed her briefly. “Yeah, right. Crammed in a flying deathtrap with Slim to pick up some runaway brat. Can’t wait.”

“Just admit it, Logan. You’ve been friends for years.”

“Never,” he grunted stubbornly. Then he grinned and kissed her again. “Well, have a good time at your… medical… thing. Love you, Jeannie.”

“Okay, baby. I love you too. You can call me when you get back as long as it’s after five.”

“Bye, Daddy!” Chuckie yelled, hugging his leg.

“Bye, cub. Be good for Aunt Ro.”

“I will!”

As his youngest scampered away down the hall, Logan turned to go to the hangar. Scott and Kitty were already strapped into the front, making the final preparations for the flight.

“Nice of you to finally join us, Captain Canuck. Try not to puke all over the seats this time,” Scott tossed over his shoulder.

“Up yours, Boy Scout. I’ll puke wherever the hell I want, and since you got those swim goggles already, you can be the one who cleans up after.”

“Girls, please, you’re both pretty,” Kitty butted in, rolling her eyes at their banter.

Logan snorted and reluctantly fastened himself into a seat, trying to get ready for the inevitable discomfort and nausea that came from air travel.

“Try not to be such a bad pilot this time,” he groaned, directing the comment at Scott especially.

“Why do I get the feeling you actually _enjoy_ projectile vomiting on the back of my head?” the other man shot in reply.

“Hey, I ain’t Warren. He’s made to fly so he got wings. I don’t got wings, so I ain’t made to fly. But if I gotta lose my lunch, yeah, the back of your head’s a fun target.”

 _Christ,_ he thought to himself as they lurched into the sky. His guts were already doing flips and he’d stupidly gorged on four or five packages of Polish sausage with TJ about an hour ago. _Jeannie, you still feeling me? Can you please knock me out? I feel like shit._

The next thing he knew, Kitty was shaking him awake.

“Hey! Rise and shine, Wolfie!”

“Mph, what?” Logan grunted, rubbing his eyes. “Shit. Guess she heard me after all.”

“Ah, so _that’s_ why you passed out,” she chuckled. “You lost, Scott.”

“Dammit! Okay, remind me when we get back, you’ll get your twenty bucks.”

“Making bets on me, Slim?” Logan smirked as he got to his feet. “Thought you’d know better by now.”

“Go to hell, hairball.”

The trio exited the jet onto the roof of some institutional building that was probably a school or something. Apparently some kid named Kane Aaron had accidentally destroyed an entire computer lab at his high school when they’d inexplicably reprogrammed themselves to only respond to said kid, and now he was locked up somewhere pending trial. Of course, “pending trial” for a mutant meant that they were guilty until proven guilty, so the X-Men were trying to get to him first.

“We got coordinates for him?” Logan questioned once they were at street level.

“Yeah, he’s being held in protective custody at the state hospital on Fisher Road. Apparently he’s mentally unstable because his dad tried to kill him when he found out.”

“So you’re doing the heavy lifting while we run interference?” he guessed with a glance at Kitty.

“Basically,” she nodded. “But try not to draw too much attention. Mutants have been getting a _lot_ of bad press in this area over the past few weeks.”

“How do we got bad press here? Thought this is the least populated state in the country…”

“Actually, Alaska is the least populated state in the country,” Scott informed him. “Vermont’s a close second, though.”

“Hmm, could be a nice place,” Logan hummed thoughtfully.

“If the government goes after you again?” Kitty guessed dryly.

“No, actually, to take my kids on vacation so that they’ll be safe from curious humans.”

“I wouldn’t. Vermont has no gun laws, so everyone in it is armed to the teeth,” Scott warned.

“That why it takes three of us _and_ the jet for just one mutant teenager when I could drive over in my Jeep real easy?”

“That would’ve been a bad idea,” Kitty argued. “Remember how I said Kane’s mentally unstable? Well, it was made apparent after his dad went after him, but the professor said he’s actually been sick for a long time. When the computers at his school would only work if he touched them, the teachers thought he’d done it on purpose and he panicked. It caused the gravity around him to warp and everything in the room was pulled to his body, which is what actually caused the damage.”

“Fantastic,” Logan grumbled sarcastically.

The trio moved in on the state hospital, but only Kitty went inside. For such a high-profile inmate, there didn’t seem to be much in terms of external security, and apparently there wasn’t much on the inside either because it took all of five minutes for her to return with a short gangly kid.

“Thought this kid was in high school,” he snorted, making a face. “He looks like my toddler could beat him up!”

“Up yours, jackass!” Kane snapped, flipping him off with both fingers.

“Hey, calm down,” Scott ordered, indicating both of them. “We’re here to help you, Kane.”

“Yeah right,” the boy sneered. “You can’t help me and I don’t need it, so thanks for breaking me out and all, but I’m just gonna go now.”

“No you ain’t,” Logan countered flatly, grabbing a fistful of the kid’s hospital gown and holding him in place on the sidewalk.

“Let go of me, weirdo!” Kane shouted, struggling uselessly against the bigger mutant’s absurd strength. “I don’t know how this usually goes down for you, but I try not to make a habit out of being kidnapped by a bunch of freaks in leather gimp suits!”

“Okay then,” he grunted, not releasing the cloth but still trying to call the skinny boy’s bluff. “You take off into the woods dressed like that and barefoot, with no food and no money, while we leave and forget we even saw you. How the hell you think that’ll go, pal? Already busted you outta the klink and we said we’re tryna help, but you’re not interested. In this cold, you’ll be lucky if the pigs find you first before you freeze solid. That really what you want?”

“Kane,” Scott butted in, “we really are trying to help. We know what happened at your school and that your dad attacked you. We _also_ know that none of this is your fault.”

That made the boy pause, his pale gray eyes darting back and forth between the team leader and Logan. “So, what, you’re gonna take me someplace and sell me for medical experiments?”

“That ain’t funny,” Logan snapped, jerking the kid roughly in rebuke.

“I wasn’t joking,” Kane snarked back.

“Can I finish?” Scott sighed impatiently as he folded his arms, though the question was directed more at his compatriot. “We’re all teachers, Kane, if you can believe it. We work at a school in upstate New York that’s just for people like us. Mutants. We find kids like you when you discover your powers, and bring them there. If you come with us, it’s a warm bed, three meals a day, and we can guarantee you’ll be safe with us. You won’t go to prison or back into a state institution, and we’ll teach you how to control your gifts.”

“Yeah, you know my name and I’ve never even seen you before. That’s not super welcoming to me, dude.”

“Okay,” the X-Man nodded slowly. “My name is Cyclops, that’s Shadowcat, and the jerk who grabbed you is Wolverine. I can’t force you to do anything, Kane, and if you _really_ want we’ll let you go. But wouldn’t you rather live in a safe place where people aren’t afraid of you? Where you can get better and not be afraid of _yourself?_ Look, I know you don’t think so, but I know what you’re going through. One day when I was at school my eyes blasted a hole in the ceiling. But the teachers from the school I work at now came and found me, and made this lovely visor so I can control it. We just want to help you, I promise. But you have to let us.”

Kane scowled, but Logan felt him stop struggling to pull free. Now that the kid wasn’t about to bolt he let go of the hospital gown.

“You know what, whatever, dude. Probably those guys are just going to experiment on me if they catch me anyway, so you can do whatever you want. You still can’t help me, though. Nobody can.”


	4. Unknown Factors

_ “I think I’m taming you, baby,” Jean smiled. _

_ Logan chuckled from where he had spooned his body around her from behind. “I think I like you taming me,” he murmured. “Never felt this good before you did. Got you here on my bed, world don’t seem to be going to shit anymore, been having less nightmares. And them.” He tenderly rubbed circles with his palm, feeling the tiny movements in her swollen belly. “More cubs. They’re already squalling in there.” _

_ “They only do that when I’m trying to sleep,” Jean complained. _

_ “Baby in a few months we ain’t even gonna have the  _ time _ to lay down and try to sleep,” Logan muttered dryly. “Two newborns and an autistic toddler? Dead people’ll feel sorry for us.” _

_ “What’s this ‘us’ crap?” his fiance questioned sarcastically. “You’re not the one who’s going to get up and feed them every hour and have bruises on your nipples for a month straight.” _

_ “I’ll still have to put up with TJ,” he pointed out. “Kid’s gonna be the death of me, Jeannie.” _

_ “I wouldn’t give it up for anything, though,” she smiled, snuggling closer to him. “Remember us three years ago? We had no idea what we were doing.” _

_ “Ugh. Those baby books were full of lies.” _

_ “I know… but now look at us, we’re completely fine and happy with the state of things. Happy parents have happy kids.” _

_ “Speaking about happy kids, don’t know if I told you this yet, but this morning when I got TJ up he looked at me and said ‘Daddy.’” _

_ “Really?” _

_ “Swear to God,” Logan nodded. “I could’a fucking cried if it didn’t make me laugh so hard. Never thought it would happen. Think he’s finally reaching the world, something got to him. First time he’s ever looked at me. First thing he’s ever said. It’s kinda weird, but… almost completely makes up for the rest of it. Two seconds of real connection with my son is almost better than if I’d had two or three years of words from him.” _

 

“Dad.”

Logan looked up in surprise when it was TJ who’d addressed him. He didn’t think the kid had ever said a word unless it was pried out of him with a crowbar.

“Yeah, kid?”

There was a brief pause and he took a sip of his beer, glancing briefly back at the screen where the Oilers were throwing down against the Rangers.

“Why am I not a person?”

The question was so awful that Logan almost choked before spitting out his alcohol all over himself. Coughing and wiping his face on the sleeve of his flannel, he couldn’t help the expression of absolute shock that crossed his face.

“Who the hell told you that you ain’t a person? I’ll gut them for saying it!” TJ didn’t reply, staring at his feet like always, and Logan’s horror dissolved into sadness at the realization that he’d drawn this conclusion on his own. Setting the beer bottle on the coffee table, he got off the couch and crushed his son to his chest in a hug. “Don’t ever think that,” Logan commanded, forcing his voice not to shake as rage threatened to overcome him. “Ever.”

TJ’s words were muffled by his plaid shirt, but he still caught them. “Medicine. Claws.”

Logan’s heart sank into his stomach as he realized he had no answer for this situation. He broke the embrace, but put his arm across his son’s narrow body and started walking. “We’re gonna go talk to Mom about this, okay?”  _ Maybe she’ll know what to do, ’cause I sure as hell don’t… _

Down in medical, Jean made them lie down on exam tables next to each other. With one hand on TJ’s head and the other on Logan’s, she threaded his consciousness to meet their son’s mind before following after him. Maybe as a pair they stood a better chance of reaching him.

Logan clung to the feeling of Jean’s immaterial presence beside his own. He was completely disoriented, not knowing exactly what he was sensing, but it felt hideously real somehow.

_ Relax,  _ his wife soothed.  _ This is normal. You’ll adjust. _

Gradually he started to process and understand. Logan was similar to a blanket like this, wrapping around TJ’s mind and feeling its outermost layer. He’d expected it to be like the silent conversations he shared with Jean sometimes, where he felt the words form instead of hearing them, but for some reason there was no words at all. Some parts of TJ were sluggish and stuck on a particular feeling or compulsion. Others were boiling over with activity, a rush of colors and sounds and torment. And in between the driving speed and obstinate slowness was such overwhelming chaos that Logan had no hope of understanding it.

_ This is TJ’s brain? _ Logan murmured in awe.

_ Yes. Every time I’ve read him I can’t help being fascinated. A typical human mind has thoughts in their native language that translate their emotions. TJ’s is all emotion and almost no conventional language. He perceives the world through his senses and always takes the most literal interpretation. _

_ Uh… can you dumb that down for me, Jeannie? _

_ He learns about the world the same way you do, but he doesn’t know how to deal with his feelings,  _ his wife explained.  _ Are you ready to go deeper in with me? _

_ Yeah, _ Logan affirmed.

He was overcome with the sensation of drifting, like sinking through water but much slower. He’d only been feeling before, but as Jean pulled him further in he started to regain a little more of himself. Logan couldn’t smell or hear, but he was able to see again. His limbs and normal body form came back as well, and he was standing in a forest.

_ Jean? _ he called out, unnerved that he was surrounded by trees without a trace of the wildlife that should be there. Logan took a few steps, glancing around and realizing it looked just like the woods on the school campus. There was no sign of the mansion, though, or any of his intricate security systems.  _ Jean? What is this? _

Nothing. Panicking now, Logan picked a random direction and started running. He had to find the way out. Look for something familiar as a landmark. Why was he deaf? Why didn’t his nose tell him anything?

**Dad.**

Logan’s foot caught a root or a rock or something and he did a heavy faceplant into the dirt. There was no shock of pain, though, and almost immediately he found himself sitting cross-legged on the floor of his son’s bedroom. TJ was settled a few feet across from him in an identical pose, watching. Both pairs of hazel eyes met.

_ What’s going on, kid? _

**I don’t know. Usually I’m by myself in here. I can feel Mom looking for me, but I can’t find her. She brought you here.**

_ How are you talking? You’ve never said this much at once… _

**I’m not. You can sense my concepts, but they’re abstract for you, and since your brain is touching mine I can convert said concepts into Words for ease of communication. The pure chaos of the abstract would keep you from understanding me otherwise.**

_ Jesus kid, _ Logan smirked, marvelling at how they spoke without opening their mouths at all.  _ Knew you’re smart, but damn, you’re way up there, ain’t you? _

**Intelligence is relative,** TJ pointed out, slowly shaking his head without breaking eye contact.  **Yet another in a series of abstract concepts. The laws of physics in regards to human biology dictate there is no accurate measure of intelligence that can make one person’s brain power comparable with another’s. Information retention, yes. Application of learned skills, certainly. But not intelligence. As I said, an abstract concept.** The boy paused.  **Grandpa Charles was able to come here, once. We debated the usefulness of the abstract. Personally, I’ve only ever found it confusing and pointless. Physics eventually leads us to the explanations we need. Therefore, the abstract is obsolete.**

_ Uh, yeah, _ Logan nodded, pretending that those statements weren’t several miles above his head. He wasn’t stupid by any means, but TJ’s thought patterns were far beyond his depth.  _ Look, kid. Me and your mom are kinda worried about you lately. Dr. Keough told me you’re sad about something, and then you asked me why you’re not a person… did we do something, kid? What’s going on? _

**Sadness is an abstract concept.**

_ Okay, that’s great, but you really gotta tell me what the problem is, _ Logan snapped, losing his patience.

**There are only two states of being for situations that I’m personally aware of. Pleasant, and unpleasant. You apply your intangible label to the situations I find unpleasant. At the current moment… no, I am not “sad,” to use your disgustingly inept term. Actually I’m quite pleased. I enjoy communicating with you as an equal. Often, the Words don’t find me, and I can never say the things I wish to express. When you were perceiving my psyche as a stretch of forest, I could detect that while it felt familiar in some ways, it was threatening in others, and that you didn’t understand why. It’s a perfect comparison for unpleasant situations that I find myself in. I’m usually able to extrapolate the parameters of said situation, but there’s either an unknown element present or some expectation has been violated.**

_ Makes sense. So… what’s unknown or violated that can make you look upset to us? Jesus, kid, I always ask you what’s wrong but you ain’t ever been able to tell me til now, I gotta know what’s going on. _

**I simply find myself… questioning… of late. The unknown factor presented itself upon the realization that I’m physically incomparable to everyone around me.**

_ How do you mean? _ Logan prodded, leaning forward slightly.

**The medicine.**

_ Oh, _ he muttered, getting the point instantly.  _ Well… shit, kid, I don’t got anything for you. Your body just don’t work right, that’s all. I know it sucks and I’d fix you if I could, but there ain’t a damn thing I can do about it. Life just ain’t fair like that. Hell, it ain’t been fair to me, either. My claws ain’t s’posed to be like this, I know they used to be bones like yours. Someone did this to me and I didn’t have a say in any of it. You think I like being like this? Most’a my life is missing right outta my head, but I still get the nightmares about it. Took me forever to realize this, but there ain’t any way to get outta it. Always be this way and I can’t change it. You’ll always be the way you are, too. Just gotta make peace with it so it don’t eat you alive. _

**But nobody else needs the medicines.**

_ I know, _ Logan nodded sympathetically.  _ You need them to live. Me and Mom wouldn’t make you take drugs if we didn’t love you. _

Something changed, a barely perceptible shift in TJ’s posture. Suddenly Logan’s whole body felt like he’d been blasted with liquid nitrogen.

**Bye, Dad.**

Logan was abruptly flung back out of TJ’s mind and into the real world again, wracking his muscles with such a violent spasm that he threw himself off the exam table and onto the hard tile floor of the infirmary. Rolling with a growl to slowly get to his feet, he saw Jean sinking into a rolling chair. Her limbs were shaking from the exhaustion of pushing his mind into their son’s.

“How’d it go? Did you find him?” she asked wearily.

“Yeah,” Logan muttered. “I think I said something wrong.”


	5. Choked

It was all that kid’s fault, Logan stubbornly clung to in his head. That Kane kid. This never would’ve happened if Kane Aaron, unstable manipulator of complex circuitry and gravitational force, hadn’t stolen Scott’s car and tried to bolt. Because Logan and Jean had gone after him.

They’d caught him, of course, because there was almost nobody Logan couldn’t catch. Jean had been there helping him, too.

 

_ “Anything you wanna say for yourself, bub?” he growled, using all his willpower not to slice the steering wheel in half by accidentally letting his claws slide free. _

_ “I told you I’m beyond help,” Kane muttered, his pale eyes fixed to the seat in front of him. Jean was holding him firmly in place with her telekinesis, and he wouldn’t be going anywhere soon. _

_ “Wrong answer, kid. You take off in Slim’s car at midnight, make me chase you up half the fucking interstate and then crash that stolen car into a guardrail? Uh-uh. You were grown, I’d fucking  _ gut _ you.” _

_ “So fucking gut me, then!” the puny forteen-year-old howled from the back of the Jeep. “I don’t care, dude. Just fucking gut me. I’ll shake your hand and thank you on my way out.” _

 

Hank had done the procedure, because there was no way Jean could’ve. For some morbid reason that escaped him, Logan had sat in the infirmary and watched the entire thing in silence while his wife was telling their other three kids what had happened: their brother was gone, and he wasn’t coming back.

“Are you sure you want to be here?” Hank had questioned softly.

“Fuck you,” Logan had spat in reply, taking out his rage on someone who had nothing to do with the whole thing. “Go do your fucking job.”

Later, when he thought about it, he would know that the other mutant understood Logan wasn’t angry with him. Even after several hours of careful slicing and the taking of samples, which revealed everything and made Logan crash through the infirmary and trash the place. But Hank hadn’t blamed him either, he’d realize afterwards. How else should a parent react to the news that their son has taken his own life?

 

_ “LOGAN!” Jean’s hideous scream ripped him out of slumber. _

_ Instantly awake, he sprang out of bed and crashed through the door. She was frantically putting her hands all over TJ’s chest and neck, an expression of absolute horror and anguish poisoning her lovely face. Logan could only gawk from the doorway. He knew - she was looking for his pulse, trying to feel him breathe. But his ears told him everything. TJ was already gone. And for the life of him, Logan couldn’t move at all, like his feet had grown roots down into the carpet. _

 

It had been in the middle of the night, according to the autopsy. Sometime shortly after they’d left to go scrambling after Kane, TJ had definitively given up. His prescriptions had been freshly refilled the previous afternoon, so he’d gulped down every single tablet.

Once he’d run out of expensive medical equipment to put his claws through or smash into the wall, Logan had just sat for a while in the midst of his destructive rage, staring blindly at the surgical table where a sheet had been pulled up to hide his son. His entire body seemed to have gone numb and stupid, refusing to even twitch by now, while his mind was still dominated by a haze of red. If anyone had come into the room right then, though, it would’ve broken his psychological paralysis and he would’ve killed them on the spot without thinking.

Logan didn’t remember how it’d happened, but the next thing he knew he was waking up in the bedroom he shared with Jean. He was in ratty old sweatpants and a wife beater that had seen one too many combat scenarios, with the blanket and pillow tossed over the side of the bed and just the top sheet tangled with his tough body.

_ It was a nightmare, _ Logan thought to himself, rubbing his eyes and sitting up slowly.  _ It didn’t happen. TJ is fine, everyone’s fine. _

Not bothering to put on real clothes, he lazily wandered out of his family’s suite and down the hall to the kitchen. He could hear people talking in quiet voices, but deliberately ignored this fact and walked right in. They all looked at him and went quiet, making him pause. Ororo, Kurt, Warren, Scott and Bobby were practically staring hard enough to burn holes through his already-tattered undershirt.

“Uh… what’s going on?” he questioned, his mind already blocking out the obvious answer. No. It was a nightmare. TJ is fine. “Something happen?”

Ororo and Scott shared a look - they’d known him for way too long not to immediately get it. His survival instincts had kicked in: faced with a situation he couldn’t defeat, his only option was to flee. Logan was already burying everything.

“Are you okay?” Bobby questioned in a low, hesitant tone.

“Yeah, why?”

“Because your-”

Scott hissed and made a cutting gesture with his fingers, shaking his head. “Don’t. For the safety of everyone and everything in this mansion, just don’t. He’s in denial. Let him deny for a little while.”

“Deny what?” Logan snapped, getting impatient with them. “What are you talking about?”

 

But, just like the appointment with the psychiatrist more than ten years ago, Logan could only refuse to accept the situation for so long. The agonizing facts scorched him on the morning when he was standing stiff-legged by the closet with Jean fastening the tie around his neck for him. She’d been crying a lot, but he’d stubbornly pushed everything out. Now, seeing how badly his wife was hurting, Logan hated himself for it even beyond his usual level of self-loathing. He kept his expression carefully blank, not wanting to upset Jean even more, but at his sides his fingers had clenched hard enough into his palm that his nails drew blood.

Logan hadn’t even owned any dress clothes before this. Now he was covered in black fabric, his least worn-out work boots scrubbed clean for him by somebody, a stifling black coat over it all and a necktie tight enough to strangle him. His blades were itching inside his forearms, begging to be set loose and carve everything around him into unrecognizable chunks.

TJ was getting buried next to the woods. He’d enjoyed the shelter of trees as much as his father. There was way too many people here for it, Logan couldn’t help but feel. Jean’s parents had showed up, of course, and some of her extended family members he’d barely heard about and never met. Most of the students Jean taught were crying on her behalf, albeit silently. They loved their teacher. The sky was overcast, too, undoubtedly because Ororo was too proud to weep in public and the clouds would bear her grief for her. Scott wasn’t crying either (probably because his visor wouldn’t let him), but he wore his sadness on his sleeves. He’d hugged Jean earlier and clapped Logan’s shoulder in a show of support.

Logan, for his part, sat immobile in the front row of metal folding chairs, knowing he didn’t have to speak until the end and using that time to swallow his burning fury as best he could. He didn’t listen to a single thing anyone else said - there was no point. What pitiful words from others could possibly make up for the loss of his son, even on the smallest level? If anything, this whole ritual only further spat in his face. It was adding insult to injury in the knowledge that he was a spectacular failure as a parent. He could’ve let that kid go… Kane clearly didn’t want their help, and he should’ve just stayed put. If he’d only been here, he could’ve saved TJ.

Fuck.

_ Fuck. _

He could’ve saved TJ.

But he didn’t. Logan hadn’t saved TJ. If he could just take that moment back…

It was Logan’s turn. Jean knew what he wanted to say, so she’d written it down for him to make it easier. The paper was crushed in his fist and when he got to the podium he barely tried to smooth it first. He didn’t care - why did his throat feel funny? He coughed to clear it before starting.

“You know… before my son was born, I used to panic a lot. I couldn’t help but always think to myself that I don’t have what it takes to be a good father, and that I’m inflicting my curse on an innocent life. Creating a monster, even. A monster that didn’t want to be born in the first place. Then, I held him for the first time. I can’t explain how it felt, that there’s a tiny creature in my arms who’s completely innocent and who I created with the woman I love more than life itself. So my brain decided, no, this can’t be a monster. He’d never been a monster. I’d been stupid to think that, but for the first time in my life I could forgive myself for something. I forgave myself for those ugly thoughts.

"Even after a couple years and we learned about his… disorder… watching him start to get bigger, and those brief moments when he could actually connect with me, was magical. Jeannie would start going to conferences out of state again, so I’d sit next to him on the couch, each of us holding one of his sisters because they were only about a year old and watching some goofy kid’s film. When our fourth child was born, he was eight, and that was the first time he looked at a person who wasn’t me or Jean. He pointed at Chuckie, and just said ‘That’s my brother.’ He never said more than three words at once, but I could always feel in those three words everything else he wanted to tell me. And it… I…”

Logan coughed again.

“I’m so careful with my kids. My wife even said to me several times that they helped me become a better man. I was less angry, more patient. So much that they never even knew I had claws for years. When he was ten, his suddenly grew in, and I found him twenty feet up a pine tree, just staring at them and bawling. I never saw him get that scared at anything before. He didn’t know what was happening to him. So I climbed up after him. ‘It’ll be okay, kid. Look. I have them too.’” To emphasize his words, Logan held up a fist and let them slip free for a moment. “TJ held onto my back and I climbed down with him, and once we got down he just hugged me as tight as he could. He never does that. I never saw him hug before. But it’s because… he didn’t have… didn’t have the words. He didn’t need words, because it told me everything. The… feeling…”  Cough.  “Feeling of him grabbing me like that, I knew what he wanted to say. ‘Dad, I love you.’”

Almost everyone present had teared up, their eyes glassy even if the beads of emotion couldn’t escape down their cheeks. Logan swallowed hard and coughed again.

“About a week ago, though, something happened. Or maybe not. It could’ve happened a while ago, but it was last week that I finally noticed it. Because he came up to me in the TV room, totally unprovoked, and I’ll never forget this. He… he asked me…” Logan choked again and coughed several times, his fingers gripping the edges of the podium. “Jesus fucking Christ, he just came up and asked me, ‘Dad, why am I not a person?’ Why is he not a person… I didn’t know how to tell him. I wish I had told him this. That he wasn’t a person because most people are actually scumbags that I’ve met. ‘Person’ is as much of a swear as ‘shit’ or ‘fuck’ or ‘cocksucker’ to me. He didn’t need to be a person, because he was my son, and that’s all I ever wanted him to be in the first place. But I didn’t know how to say it.

"I don’t know if he would’ve got it, anyway, that’s not the way he thought about things. So we… we went to talk about it with my wife. She helped me look into his mind. I got mixed up on the way in, but then I found him. This was the only time he ever really talked to me, the way he wanted to, because my mind was touching his. You should’a heard what he said, he didn’t sound twelve at all. He sounded like Professor Xavier. Always knew he was smart, and if he could just escape his own head he’d blow people away. Blew me away when we talked. It’s the only conversation I ever had with TJ. And… I think he tried to tell me. He didn’t know how, just like I didn’t know how. But I still think he tried. He knew something was wrong, and he wanted me to know, but I was too fucking stupid to realize it until it was too late.”

Logan choked, swallowed, coughed. Choked again. Another cough. Both his daughters were wiping tears and snot onto the hems of their dresses.

“And now, that’s all I got. I failed him. I should’a known, and I could’a saved him, and now my family is sitting here breaking in front of me because I was just too fucking stupid. Until now, there were so many moments I wanted back. Parts of my life that I’ll probably never remember. Things I did before I came here. You all got those moments, too. The ones you’d give up anything to have a second chance on. I could give a shit about all those, now. Because even if it meant Sabertooth came back and killed me after, I only want that one moment back. One conversation. I got to talk to my son, and because I only paid attention to the words, I never got what he really meant.”

Logan couldn’t find his voice after that. He swallowed and choked, but the words just couldn’t get out anymore. The rest of his voluntary action left after that, making his hands slip off the podium and burrow into his thick black hair while he crashed heavily to his knees. Like slow motion. The choking feeling let go, and no matter how much he tried to stifle it the sobbing started anyway.

His family and all the X-Men rushed over to him, pooling around him with their hands on his shoulders and back. Too many voices. They all melted into a jumbled mess of white noise on his ears, while so many hands gently tugged him back to his feet and pulled him along somewhere. He didn’t care. Fingers and arms pressing against his body to hold him up, because he couldn’t stand or walk otherwise. Warm palms slipping into his huge fists, squeezing. They helped him stumble along after them, somewhere.

In the back of his head, the Wolverine suddenly stirred, shaking off years of dormant slumber. Pushed away into a dark corner by the sticky hands of his children, who needed Logan and not the Wolverine. The Wolverine was mocking him now:  **_Weak. Weak animal. Can’t take care of the pack anymore._ **

_ Shut up! _ Logan screamed back.  _ SHUT UP! I got rid of you! Get the fuck away from me! _

**_Never,_ ** Wolverine crowed maliciously.  **_Weak animal. I am the strong animal. You need me._ **

_ Fuck, _ he thought. It was true. He did need that side of himself, now, because it was the only thing that didn’t seem to be crumbling through his fingers.


	6. Seeds

Had it been sixteen days now, or seventeen? He was starting to lose track. It had been more than two weeks since TJ’s funeral and he hadn’t gotten out of bed for anything except to piss (though he was so dehydrated by now that even that had stopped). Jenny had come into the room crying this morning, pulling on his wrist as hard as she could and begging him to get up. But Logan was so engulfed in his stupor that in truth he didn’t even know she was there. He was conscious without being awake, and he had no way of knowing how scared Jean and their kids were that he’d just lie there forever and waste away in tortured silence.

And then two strong hands shoved him hard off the edge of the mattress. The impact with the floor shook Wolverine loose, and even though his body was already very weak with neglect he managed to leap up with an enraged bellow.

“Save the posturing,” Scott frowned, sounding bored. “This is the most alive you’ve been in almost three weeks. Put some real clothes on, you’re coming with me for a while.”

“No fucking thanks, Slim.” His voice was hoarse from disuse. “Not interested.”

“Did I ask?” Scott folded his arms across his chest. “Clothes. Now. You’ve been wallowing in self-pity for long enough.”

Sensing that the team leader wouldn’t stop pestering him until he complied, Logan disappeared into his bathroom briefly to tug on jeans and a flannel. He glanced at the mirror, not recognizing the pale and malnourished man who stared back with bloodshot eyes and too much beard.

Standing or walking too long even made him dizzy, so once he was sitting in the car Scott shoved an unopened package of roast beef cold cuts into his hands with a bottle of water.

“The hell you doing, Slim?” he grunted even as he was already prying the container open and scooping the meat into his mouth.

“You’ll see.”

They drove in silence after that, Logan demolishing the sandwich cuts in about twelve seconds and draining the water bottle with one pull. At first he wasn’t sure what Scott was planning, but as they turned down a few more roads of a familiar route he figured it out. He’d come this way several times before, and being brought here again should’ve made him dread what was coming next like he had with the funeral. But somehow, it actually felt almost comfortable for Logan. Because this wasn’t TJ’s burial; it was Albany.

“She call you or something?” he questioned as they got out of the car and went into the building.

“No, we talked after… well, you know. She came for the funeral, but didn’t get the chance to talk to you because you shut yourself in.”

Several years ago, during the fiasco involving a young mutant named Jimmy, Rogue had elected to take the cure. Logan hadn’t condemned or condoned her choice, only advising her to do what she thought was right for her regardless of what anyone else thought or said. She was just Marie now, but he didn’t mind. Some part of him would always look at her and see the freezing girl he tried to throw out of his trailer.

Marie had gotten far in life by now. She lived in her own apartment in Albany to be close to the law firm she worked for, she had been in a relationship for more than three years, and after a long struggle was even back on friendly terms with her family again.

Scott pounded on the door a couple times and it opened almost immediately. They entered without a word, and Marie pulled Logan into a long hug. Before, it had always been him offering comfort, while she wept over thinking everyone at school was mad at her or reaching out to her parents for the first time and being rejected, or not knowing after the fact if taking the cure had been a mistake. Today it was in reverse, Marie’s hands rubbing circles into his back while he shook with his face in her shirt to hide the tears. Because even though she’d known him as long as Jean or Scott or Ororo had, Logan felt like she was the only one who understood his pain.

After a while the three of them ended up sitting around her kitchen table. Marie made coffee for them and Scott insisted on yet more food for Logan. His friends were quiet while he wolfed down a couple of ham sandwiches, but for once he didn’t mind. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence - they were just waiting for him to be available for conversation again.

“Slim said you were there,” Logan offered after a moment. He took another sip of coffee. “Didn’t see you, but I figured you’d come. Sorry I didn’t come talk.”

“It’s okay,” she smiled, reaching across the table to hold his hand. “I know you were overwhelmed, sugar.”

“Jesus,” he muttered, squeezing her fingers. “Hope you never go through that like I did. Hurt just as much as it would if I lost Jeannie.”

Marie nodded, her expression showing nothing but kindness and sympathy. They wrote letters back and forth sometimes (paper letters, because Logan had never been able to make heads or tails of a computer) and she’d mentioned cases around parents suing over the wrongful death of their offspring.

“It took a lot out of you to say what you did at the end,” Scott offered, hands wrapped around his mug. “Kitty and Piotr said so, too, and we all agreed with them. And for what it’s worth, if… if it was you we were mourning, I think a lot of us probably wouldn’t have handled it as well as you did. I know you pretend to be cranky with us like you don’t care, but you’re still closer to most of us than we are with our own brothers and sisters. Your family’s a lot bigger than you think. Anything that hurts you, hurts us.”

“It’s not your fault, either,” Marie added. “I know you take care of your kids like you took care of me. You did your best.”

“But I didn’t,” Logan whimpered, swallowing as his eyes started to sting again.  **_Weak animal,_ ** Wolverine taunted again. “The rest of the team could’a chased that kid up the interstate. If I was… if I hadn’a left… fuck, I could’a saved him…”

“You know, a few years before you joined us, there was a student who arrived at the school. Her parents and brother came with her to settle her in, they absolutely loved her and wanted what was best for her. She was a really sweet kid. Everyone loved her, she was every kid’s sister and every teacher’s niece. And she committed suicide the day before she got her diploma.”

“That s’posed to cheer me up?” Logan grumbled.

“I’m not done yet,” Scott answered, though not impatiently. “We couldn’t figure out why she did it. We thought she had everything she needed. Then, one day, her best friend came up to me. He’d graduated too, but he stayed with the team for about a year until he left to pursue his own goals. She’d never told anyone but him… that she was sexually assaulted as a child. That’s the hardest news I’ve ever given to the family of one of my students. There was nothing they could’ve done different. I don’t know why TJ did it, Logan, and I won’t pretend that I do. But whatever his reason was, it wasn’t because of anything you did or didn’t do.”

“He knew you loved him, too,” Marie added, stroking the back of his hand with her thumb. “After I ran away from home and ran into you, I always felt like you were my real dad. Even now that my family’s pleasant again, I still feel like that, sugar. You were the one who took care of me no matter what kind of trouble I got myself into, and I even felt like you were looking out for me during that time you left to look for answers.”

Of all things, this made Logan smirk. He tossed back the rest of his coffee and looked at her.

“Y’know, kid, you couldn’a been more my daughter if you actually came from my seed,” he acknowledged, finally squeezing her hand back.

“Is that why you still call me ‘kid’ like that?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “You’re almost thirty, right? But God damn, you’re still that girl eating jerky in my truck like there’s no tomorrow.”

“Marie has a really good point, though,” Scott offered. “People have complained about you being too blunt and doing everything in the most ham-fisted way you can think of, or your lack of tact, or how their former girlfriend suddenly had your soul mark on her arms…” Logan snorted at that. “...and we can say any number of things that we don’t like about you or that we find annoying. But if there’s one other thing everyone knows for sure, it’s that you love your kids to death. You’d cut off an arm for them, die for them, all those cliches, and more. When you first came to the school, we thought you’d be a danger to everyone on the team, but despite everything you’re the kind of parent other parents wish they were. If someone who didn’t know you before this saw you playing with Chuckie, they’d never believe me if I told them you butchered that team trying to invade the mansion. I could still barely believe it when Storm told me about the cake incident a couple weeks ago.”

“Cake incident?” Marie questioned.

“Long story,” Logan shrugged.

“The point is, there’s no way in Hell you don’t try your damnedest to make sure your family’s happy. Losing TJ sucks and it hurts and you’ll be sore over it for a long time, but stop blaming yourself. It wasn’t your fault in any way.”

Logan was quiet for a long moment before he finally nodded: “Thanks, Slim. I needed this.”

Scott grinned and nodded, but it was sincere. He thumped Logan on the back. “Any time, Captain Canuck.”

 

It had been difficult, Logan reflected, in December when TJ would’ve turned thirteen. And at Christmas when they’d remembered the presents they’d bought for him. But now, during one of the rare sunny days in mid-April where the temperature was mild and the snow had finally melted, it wasn’t as bad. Things were growing again, ready to engulf the campus in a blanket of green life, and the first tender shoots of grass were poking up from the slight mound.

Logan made sure of it. He’d tossed down the grass seed himself, tending the grave every week like clockwork since his talk with Marie. There was a bench put in, and occasionally someone else would sit with him, especially now that the weather was nicer.

He was sitting there now, eyes closed to just feel the sun on his face. On the other end of the lawn there was a party - Jenny and Laura were turning nine - and he’d probably join them eventually. Or they’d join him, apparently, because his ears caught their small feet scampering over to him. He turned to look and smiled at them.

“What’s going on, cubs?”

“We brought you cake, Dad,” Jenny announced, shoving a paper plate at him with a huge grin.

“We brought one for TJ, too,” Laura added, putting a second piece on top of the headstone.

“That’s nice of you,” Logan ceded, accepting the cake as they plunked down beside him. “How’re you doing over there?”

“Nana and Pop-pop brought us a lot of presents,” Jenny answered. “I even got the Lego castle I wanted, but Mom said I should ask you for help because it might be too hard.”

“Sure, kid. Be glad to,” he nodded before taking a bite of the overly-sweet pastry.

“Aunt Ro got us new bikes, too. They have the little wheels on the sides, but Scott said once we can ride them without them touching the ground then he’ll take them off for us.”

“That’s nice of them. Sounds like you’ll have a lot of fun.”

Laura squished herself up against his side. “Dad, are you going to keep being sad?”

Logan let out a slow breath through his nose, then looked at her and smiled before pulling her against his chest. “Maybe a little. But I don’t gotta be sad all the time anymore. C’mon, let’s get back to your party.”

He kissed the tips of two fingers and lightly pressed them against the grave marker, then got up to the bench and made his way over to the others with his daughters’ hands in his.


End file.
